thinking back the past month...

in thinking back the past november and early december, the first thought would be that i was completely consumed by school and very little else. the idea of being consumed by a single thing often is my loose definition of the lack of life, and because of that leads to a bad feeling about how my time was spent.

but when i think back again with a wider perspective, i can't deny that the past few weeks have been nothing short of colourful.

i am thoroughly convinced that i am a person that is like no other. let me prove that to you.

1. on the day of my first exam, i thought that it would be a good idea to go skating. as i got onto the ice, i noticed that there were two kids skating around, not minding anyone else's business but their own. i sensed that this may be a disaster in the long run, but thought nothing much more of it. i skated pretty quickly once or twice around the rink, working on crossovers. i did a crossover at the turn, but started to lose balance. the kids skating in unpredictable directions decided to stop right in my path, and as i was already losing balance, stopping was not really an option. i ended up hitting the kid from behind. after we both recovered from the fall, the kid got up as if nothing happened, but i had a large pain in my left knee. based on external observations, it was said that my knee had slammed into the kid's helmet. now i have a large bruise on my knee the size of a softball, and a reputation i enjoy attacking children. and of course, my heat transfer exam did not go too well, and if i didn't go skating, i could have done much better. fanfrickintastic.

2. one of my most academically heavy terms, all i can really remember is work. on the friday, my industrial metallurgy report was due on the friday. i ended up writing around 2750 words for that report in the span of a day. monday was the due date of my final design report, and when i handed that in, i wrote a total of 7239 words on saturday, sunday and monday. that is a total of 9989 words, in the span of 4 days. i wish i just wrote 11 more words to make it 10000 words. incredible.

3. another story that seems to be quite well known by now involves an encounter at slc. i was studying heat transfer at the side of the tables. jason was sitting on the sofa to the left of me, talking to one of his friends. she decided to throw his jacket at him, and it fluttered my sheets and the jacket also hit me in the face. in my frustration of studying radiation, i was very annoyed at the whole ordeal. i gave her a good long look which was really like 3-5 seconds of cuteye, threw off my earphones and stuff and walked outside. this walking was for the purpose of waiting for them to finish talking, and not that i was so annoyed to the point that i didn't want to be in the same area as them. jason proceeded to come and see whether i was okay, which i was of course. when i went back, i saw a sheet of paper at my seat. herman was in the process of moving the stuff from my side seat to another seat, so i helped him, and i noticed the note, which appeared to be an apology note, and without looking at it for more than a millisecond, i pushed it away. then i continued to do my own thing. the girl persisted on an apology, but by this time, i didn't care anymore and just wanted to get back to work. she stood around waiting for the opportunity, but i didn't give her one, as i started a conversation with herman. after that was over, she went up to me and tapped my shoulder. i was unable to ignore that, so i took off my earphones, and she said she was really sorry. i didn't look at her because i wanted it to be over, and i accepted her apology. that was more or less the end of it, but later, various people came to me that were sent by her to apologize on her behalf. some other crazy things that i heard was that she wanted to cry or she wanted to buy me bubble tea or things like that. who would have thought.

4. a recent observation of my instant messaging habits (likely to have conversations at least once every 3 days):

Number of Guys that i talk to regularly: 7
Number of Girls that i talk to regularly: 9

% Guys: 43.75%
% Girls: 56.25%

kind of surprising, i thought that it would be very lopsided. for those of you who think that i only talk to girls. in my defense, two of the girls i've only started talking to recently, but all the guys i've talked to for years. it is also a bit crazy that i talk to a total of 16 people regularly.

5. the last week of men's cell was my opportunity to get feedback for the term. on top of that, i tried my best to stick my theme of finding opportunities to do hard things, based on the book "do hard things" by alex and brett harris. one of such hard things was doing something that you cannot do on your own. getting feedback from the guys was very difficult, as they had nothing to say. so i suggested that we have some kind of presentation thing that could show ccf on friday what is it that we do at men's cell. i suggested them two ideas: a) their favourite men's cell moments or things that they learned or b) that we do something for women's cell. i think they liked the idea, but were not able to produce usable ideas. we finally decided that we would make them a gift. we decided upon a bookmark, because jacky knew a bit of something about origami. we proceeded to make a trip out to look for materials, going all over campus. jacky and greg made a prototype and i liked it. we decided to meet the next day (thursday). of course, i had my industrial metallurgy project due friday, and i could only meet up with them in the midst of working on my project with herman and jonny. jacky and greg finalized the bookmark and got to work. me and mark and sanderz picked a good verse to put on the bookmark (1 pet 3:3-4 nkjv). i put the guys to work and got back to my project. the next day when my project was done, i was able to join the guys again, and we put it all together. i was given some time during ccf to share about men's cell, which is probably very normal, but while talking about the importance of men's ministry, i segwayed to talking about women's ministry, and how it is up to the girls to see that as important. then i said.. these bookmarks that we made are a reminder that the men see this ministry as important, and so they should too. and we handed out bookmarks to all the girls in the fellowship. that's something that doesn't happen on a regular basis.

6. among the busyness of life and numerous distractions, i realized that one of the abilities that i treasured the most of myself, and would seek in other people, is the ability to see and read things in life into the most deep manner and to find meaning among the trivial. perhaps due to distractions, due to busyness, or due to the lack of practice, i seem to be losing my edge.

7. i went to oasis for the first time, and serving homeless people for the first time in many years. it was a program for men's cell that i intended to put the guys out of their comfort zone. on the day that we had to go, everyone responded and said that they had a midterm on that day and couldn't make it. i had already set the date with oasis, and it was too late to turn back. and it would be pretty wuss if i thought of not doing just because everyone else didn't come. so i went by myself and luckily gabe showed up on his bike. it felt a bit easier then, and i was ready to go out of my comfort zone, one that normally doesn't start conversations with people i don't know that well. ends up that what we were put in the kitchen and were to give out sandwiches to the people. in the end, jackal and vivian also showed up, which made things a lot more comfortable, as they come to oasis every week. the experience reminded me that the "homeless" aren't what we think they are. that there is a range of people classes even among those that go to a place looking for food. and that they are just as human as we are, with same kind of mental, physical, emotional and spiritual needs as we do. and that our needs aren't the ones that matter the most, because most of the time, they are more or less covered.

8. played settlers with herman and jorge for the first time in OVER A MONTH. i can only think back to last summer when we played 3-5 games a week, to the point where i wanted to vomit settlers. but i played again friday night and it was a decisive win for me. it was 3 man settlers though, and ken was missing. so it didn't feel like the real thing. also we didn't have breakfast after we finished playing.

9. another happy story. i tend to stretch out laundry doing times just to save myself some work. but there was a day i felt like going out of that, which i regret sorely today. but i did so, and it was all fine and dandy when i got started. when the washing was done, i went downstairs to take my clothes to the dryer. to my surprise, my ipod appeared, and i realized that i left it in my hoodie pocket. in my panic, i tried to turn it on, but nothing happened. i carried on with my laundry, but only some half an hour later did i realize what i had done. soon enough came the colourful cussing and metaphorical bashing, and reconciling that my ipod nano that i bought in montreal for a little bit more for a year, is now just a decorative piece of plastic. frick.

that's all i can think of for now without feeling gulity about not studying. more to come later.